Behind-the-Scenes Employees Coordinate Outage Restoration
Print
During our windstorm and flooding event in December, you may have observed our field crews hard at work assessing damage, removing trees from power lines, repairing damaged wires, poles, and crossarms, or in transit around the area. Fieldwork is supported by several roles at the office, including dispatch.
Northern Lights, Inc.’s dispatch is the central hub for coordinating all field activities and becomes a very busy place during large-scale restoration events.
Dispatch handles incoming calls from members, 911 centers, NLI employees, and lineworkers in the field. They use an outage management system based on an electric system map to track damage reported by members and crews. This ensures a crew gets assigned to correct any issues found.
As lineworkers repair locations, they communicate with dispatch through NLI’s internal radio system and get information about what areas to head to next. This is a constant back-and-forth to keep track of where NLI crews, contract crews, mutual aid crews, tree crews, and field engineers are working so lines can be safely reenergized when repairs are made, and we do not miss any area in need of attention.
This is all done while dispatch also handles calls from our members, reports underground locates for broken pole repairs, tracks damage on the OMS, and takes calls from 911 dispatch centers about lines blocking roads.
During storm events, NLI brings in additional staff to answer phone and radio calls to keep operations running smoothly. In December, NLI’s full-time dispatchers rotated through 24-plus-hour shifts for more than a week with extra support during the daytime and early evenings.
NLI had more than 15,000 of its 24,000 accounts out of power early in the wind event. In total, 52 damaged power poles needed to be replaced.
NLI is thankful for all employees who are dedicated to serving cooperative members and who worked long hours for several days. The co-op is also thankful for members’ support, understanding, and patience during the extended outage.
Northern Lights Engineering & Operations Manager Kristin Burge is an electrical engineer and has worked in the electric utility industry for most of her career.
